Third Way may have right way

If you are trying to follow the bouncing ball, which is the debate over the pending fiscal cliff, you may very well be experiencing a case of vertigo.

On Nov. 9, days after President Obama won re-election, The Wall Street Journal wrote:

“Warnings from the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) and private-sector economists, as well as a couple of rocky days in the stock market this week, have pushed politicians to at least sound more willing to compromise on their differences than in the past.”

Then on Nov. 14, comes the following from The Associated Press:

“Some Democrats are pushing an unorthodox idea of coping with the ‘fiscal cliff’: Let the government go over, temporarily at least, to give the party more bargaining leverage for changes later on.”

Had anyone on the right suggested letting the economy jump from the fiscal cliff — even momentarily — screams of Tea Party extremist would be heard across the far reaches of the lower 48 states and across the miles to Hawaii and Alaska.

The silence, however, is — as they say — deafening. And, we would add — needless.

Buried in The Associated Press report is the solution to the legislative logjam in Washington. It is one substantially proposed during the presidential election campaign by the editorial board here at Foster’s Sunday Citizen.

From the AP:

“Third Way (a centrist Democratic group) is floating a compromise ... without changing the Bush-era tax rates. It would cap itemized tax deductions at $35,000. ... The plan also would move upwardly mobile earner into higher tax brackets more quickly ...”

During the campaign, we pointed out that Republicans were willing to raise tax revenues by rejiggering tax breaks, much akin to what Third Way is proposing. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration’s recorded campaign voice-mail message has been stuck on simply increasing rates ... increasing rates ... increasing rates.

Now that the election is over, there is little to be gained by puppetting those words. But there is much to lose with no compromise on exactly how the much-maligned 1 percenters are made to pay more.

As the CBO has pointed out, falling off the fiscal cliff brings with it “an economy that would contract by 0.5% in 2013. The unemployment rate would jump from 7.9% to 9.1% by the end of 2012.” — The Wall Street Journal.

Then there is the sequester, which both Democrats and Republicans suckered for. Should that $1 trillion cut strike in 2013, it will mean the loss of thousands of jobs in just the Granite State alone. It will drive businesses already teetering on the edge off their own fiscal cliff into the abyss.

While the reports of this fiscal cliff debate may seem dizzying, that is only because no one in a leadership role has taken to the bully pulpit to lead Congress to a compromise and bring clarity.

If President Obama is interested in his legacy — as all second-term presidents of the modern era have been — he will seize the moment in bipartisan fashion. He will not be worried how more revenue is raised, just that the votes can be garnered in Congress to accomplish the task — in a substantive way the Third Way and others such as this newspaper have proposed.